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Automate storage management

Tools that automate complex storage processes are beginning to appear. Here's what's available and what benefits the tools can deliver today. Managing all or most of your storage resources from a "single pane of glass" has been the Holy Grail of storage management, but the vision remains largely unrealized. For a variety of reasons, storage resource management (SRM) tools aren't engineered to deliver complex, multistep services such as storage provisioning, data migration and performance optimization across heterogeneous storage devices. They're also unable to coordinate the numerous people required to complete these tasks. When IT process automation is applied to storage management, it begins to address the issue of linking complex processes with multiple independent tools and automating some of the more rudimentary activities. IT process automation tools provide a workflow that guides the storage administrator through the process. The real value is when these workflow engines are integrated with storage management apps to ...

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Periodically testing a disaster recovery (DR) plan is essential, but it can be a time-consuming and expensive task. New tools that check DR configurations and constantly monitor your site's readiness to recover from a disaster can cut costs and testing time, and provide a level of confidence that your DR plan will actually work when it's needed.

Big files and millions of files clogging storage systems can create big backup headaches. While there's no quick fix to the problem of big backups, there are many effective approaches, including adjustments to your backup process and newer technologies from backup vendors.

Storage managers may be reluctant to admit it, but they and the storage systems they manage are key players in most companies' compliance and legal readiness procedures. While ediscovery is the current buzzword, there's currently no all-encompassing ediscovery tool on the market. But you can assemble an effective toolkit with some of the point products that are available now.

IT process automation tools provide workflows that can help automate manual storage management processes. The real value is when these workflow engines are integrated with storage management apps to not only guide administrators through the process, but provide them with information to make intelligent decisions and automate some of the more basic tasks.

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Storage has never received the glory for all of its virtualization efforts because the server side of the shop always seemed sexier, even though forms of storage virtualization have been around for years. But server virtualization and consolidation efforts might push storage virtualization into the limelight.

To avoid inefficiency, the storage provisioning function must be brought into balance. Users must consider changes to process, responsibility and ownership, and identify areas where newer technologies can help.

Software will increasingly transcend the self-imposed technology barriers that have evolved in larger data center environments. The ability to create policy-based programs that not only automate processes, but empower others to help themselves, will dramatically improve efficiency.